On Sunday 14 October, warehouses storing illegally dumped waste and plastic materials were set on fire. One in via Chiasserini in Milan and two in Novate Milanese.
A grey sky and unbreathable air have greeted Milanese residents on recent mornings. Following the two fires that struck the city and its hinterland, the smell in the air is still acrid. Throats are burning, and traffic no longer seems like much of a problem given how serious the situation is. Arpa, the regional environmental protection agency, even urged residents and workers living and working in the streets near where the fire broke out not to open the windows of their homes or offices.
This is the situation in the Lombard capital after the flames devastated (on Sunday 14 October) first a warehouse full of waste in via Chiasserini, in the Bovisasca area, to the north of Milan, and then two warehouses belonging to the company Rieco, full of plastic material, in Novate Milanese. Public prosecutor Sara Arduini is now following the trail of illegal waste disposal. Starting last Thursday, in fact, waste had been stockpiled without authorisation in the warehouse in via Chiasserini and, after three days, was set on fire, causing a cloud of smoke up to 50 metres high.
The hypothesis that Lombardy is a new "Terra dei fuochi", as described by the environment minister Sergio Costa, is supported by the arrest of six people, which took place on 12 October at the hands of the Carabinieri forestali, accused of illegal waste trafficking. It is they who, according to the prosecution, started the first in a long series of fires in Pavia on 3 January, when a warehouse in Corteolona full of waste went up in flames: three thousand cubic metres, according to technical assessments by Arpa carried out after the fire.
The warehouse was already under investigation thanks to reports from some neighbours. The gang, made up of five Italians and one Romanian, allegedly moved tonnes of waste throughout 2018, also crossing into neighbouring Piedmont, particularly in the province of Vercelli. The first fire in Corteolona did not stop the group, despite some of its members being concerned, as emerged from the investigation, about having the authorities on their heels. So, little more than two months after the fire in the Pavia area, the arson gang was already in talks to purchase two new warehouses, in Levate and Piantedo. But it was another fire that "gave away" the group — the one involving the former Walter textile mill in Oltrona San Mamette, which had by then become an illegal dump and had been placed under seizure in February 2018. Fifteen days after the seizure, the warehouse packed with 1,500 cubic metres of plastic caught fire. It was then that the gang's trafficking operation was uncovered.
The investigation helped to uncover some names and pushed investigators to search for what the national anti-mafia directorate has described as "business-entrepreneurial-criminal hubs", which may have started other fires in Lombardy — focusing attention, for example, on another warehouse in the Lecco area and a suspicious filling of a structure in the Mantua area, possibly earmarked by the organisation as its next target for arson.
It was indeed in the Mantua area, more precisely in San Giovanni del Dosso, that haulier Luca Liloni, intercepted by the Carabinieri in June 2017, dumped 400 cubic metres of waste in yet another abandoned warehouse. The investigation intersected with that of the Milan district anti-mafia directorate and raises suspicions about the possible existence of a more complex system involving waste traffickers, hauliers and intermediaries. As reported by the Corriere della Sera, investigators have already estimated illicit profits in excess of one million euros.
But perhaps the arrested group was just one of the "systems" revolving around the waste business. Also under scrutiny, again according to the Corriere della Sera, are flows abroad, particularly to countries in Eastern Europe where former cement works — above all Romanian ones — are being turned into illegal dumps.
"We cannot commit to saying what is happening," explains the provincial commander of the Milan Fire Brigade, Carlo Dall'Oppio, speaking to LifeGate, "because our job is to put out the fires as they break out. Connecting the fires to one another is the job of the police and those conducting the investigations. These are fires of such intensity that they generate enough heat to require a great deal of work and a great deal of water. It is therefore difficult to determine the origin of the blazes. Moreover, the affected structures are partly demolished in order to be made safe, and this makes it even harder to establish how the fires started."
